Writing a Will in Germany: Form Rules Under § 2247 BGB

Germany does not accept a will simply because it clearly states what someone wanted. The document has to take one of a small number of forms set out in the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB), and a will that fails the form requirement is void even where nobody disputes what the person intended. This is the first surprise for many English-speaking readers, because the witnessed typed will that is standard in the United States, England or Australia has no equivalent under German law at all.

This page works through the handwritten will (eigenhändiges Testament) under § 2247 BGB, the notarial will under § 2232 BGB, how married couples can make a joint Berliner Testament and the trap built into it, how a will is revoked, naming an executor, making sure a will is actually found after death, and the compulsory share that limits what any will can achieve.

Information last verified on 19 July 2026. This page provides general legal information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

Only two statutory forms exist

German law gives a testator exactly two routes to a valid will. The first is the eigenhändiges Testament under § 2247 BGB, written and signed entirely by hand. The second is the öffentliches or notarielles Testament under § 2232 BGB, made before a notary. There is no third, less formal option, and no witnessed-signature format sits alongside either of these.

§ 2229 BGB sets the minimum age at sixteen. A person younger than that cannot make a will in any form. Between sixteen and eighteen, § 2233 Abs. 1 BGB restricts a minor to the notarial route: they must declare their will to the notary or hand over an open document. The sealed alternative § 2232 BGB allows an adult is not available to a minor, and cannot use the handwritten form at all. § 2233 Abs. 2 BGB applies the same restriction to anyone who, in their own account or in the notary's assessment, is not able to read.

The handwritten will: § 2247 BGB

The eigenhändiges Testament is the form most Germans actually use, and its requirement is strict: the entire text has to be written and signed in the testator's own hand, from the first word to the last. A will that is typed and then signed by hand does not satisfy § 2247 BGB, even though the signature itself is genuine. Handwriting itself is the authenticating feature, so a printed page with a handwritten signature at the bottom carries none of that weight and is void in this form.

§ 2247 Abs. 4 BGB bars a minor, and anyone unable to read, from using this form at all, which is why both groups are routed to the notary instead.

Dating the will is recommended, not strictly required. § 2247 Abs. 2 BGB says the testator should note the day, month, year and place of writing, and § 2247 Abs. 5 BGB preserves the will's validity even without that information, so long as the date and place can be established some other way, for example from the content of the document itself or from other evidence. The reason to include the date anyway is practical rather than formal: where two wills conflict, § 2258 Abs. 1 BGB provides that the later one displaces the earlier only to the extent the two actually contradict each other, and without a reliable date nobody, including a probate court, can safely say which document is the later one.

Worked example. Someone writes a handwritten will in 2019 leaving their house to a niece, then writes a second handwritten will in 2024 leaving the same house to a friend, and dates neither document. After death, both wills turn up in a drawer. If the 2024 document cannot be shown to be the later one because it carries no date, the estate and the probate court may need to reconstruct the sequence from indirect evidence such as the paper, the ink, or testimony about when each document was actually written, which is slower and less certain than simply reading a date on the page.

§ 2247 Abs. 3 BGB expects a full signature, first name and family name, though it accepts another form of signing if that still serves to establish who wrote the document.

The notarial will: § 2232 BGB

The öffentliches Testament is made before a notary, either by declaring the last will orally to the notary or by handing the notary a sealed or open document with a statement that it contains the testator's last will. It does not need to be handwritten by the testator at all; the notary produces the formal record.

There are three practical reasons a testator picks this route over the handwritten form. First, it is the only available form for a minor aged sixteen or seventeen and for anyone who cannot read, under § 2233 BGB. Second, the notary checks capacity and drafting at the point of signing, which reduces the risk of a later challenge. Third, and this is the detail many comparison sites skip, a notarial will can let an heir prove their inheritance to the land registry without applying for an Erbschein at all: § 35 GBO allows the Grundbuchamt to accept the will together with the court's Eröffnungsniederschrift, the record of the will's opening, instead of a certificate of inheritance, unless the registry has a specific reason to doubt the heirship shown by those documents. Since an Erbschein can take weeks or months and carries its own court fee scaled to the estate's value, this can be a real saving where the estate includes real property.

Joint wills between spouses: the Berliner Testament

§ 2265 BGB limits the gemeinschaftliches Testament, the joint will, to spouses (registered civil partners are included by separate provision). The most common form in Germany is the so-called Berliner Testament: the spouses name each other as sole heir on the first death, then name a third party, usually their children, as heir of whatever remains on the second death. § 2269 Abs. 1 BGB supplies this reading by default whenever a joint will follows that pattern without spelling it out expressly.

The convenience of the Berliner Testament is also its trap. § 2270 BGB treats certain provisions in a joint will as wechselbezüglich, meaning interdependent: where it is clear that one spouse's disposition would not have been made without the other's, the invalidity or revocation of one takes the other down with it. § 2270 Abs. 2 BGB presumes that interdependence exists precisely in the Berliner Testament pattern, spouses naming each other and then naming a person closely connected to both as final heir.

That interdependence produces the Bindungswirkung, the binding effect, once one spouse has died. § 2271 Abs. 2 BGB closes off the survivor's right to simply revoke and rewrite the interdependent provisions after that point. The surviving spouse can still reject an inheritance left to them and, in that event, revoke, or exercise the narrower revocation rights preserved under §§ 2294 and 2336 BGB, but they cannot freely disinherit the children the couple had jointly named while keeping the benefit the first will gave them. Before the first death, either spouse can still withdraw from an interdependent provision, but only by following the formal withdrawal procedure that applies to inheritance contracts under § 2296 BGB, referenced by § 2271 Abs. 1 BGB, not by simply writing a new will.

In practice this means a couple who signs a Berliner Testament while both are alive and well may find, decades later after one spouse's death, that the survivor cannot respond to a remarriage, a falling out with a child, or a change in family circumstances by rewriting who inherits what. Couples who want that flexibility need to build it into the original document, commonly with a Wiederverheiratungsklausel, a clause that adjusts or ends the survivor's benefit if they remarry, since remarriage is the scenario the basic Berliner Testament pattern does not anticipate.

Two structures for what the survivor actually gets

German practice describes two different structures a Berliner Testament can use, and they are not the same thing legally.

Under the Einheitslösung (unity solution), which § 2269 Abs. 1 BGB supplies as the default, the surviving spouse becomes full owner of the combined estate on the first death, and the children become heirs only of whatever the survivor still owns at their own death. The survivor can spend, use, or in some cases give away that property during their lifetime; the children's position is a future inheritance, not a present one.

Under the Trennungslösung (separation solution), which has to be spelled out expressly rather than assumed, the children's future inheritance is treated as a Vermächtnis, a legacy, that becomes due against the survivor only once they die, while the survivor holds the property subject to that eventual claim rather than as unrestricted owner. This structure is chosen less often, generally where a couple wants tighter control over what happens to specific assets on the second death.

Erbe or Vermächtnis: a distinction anglo readers routinely miss

A German will regularly gives someone a Vermächtnis rather than making them an Erbe, and the two are not interchangeable even though both amount to receiving something under a will. An Erbe steps into the deceased's entire legal position, debts included, and becomes a co-owner of the whole estate alongside any other heirs until it is divided. A Vermächtnisnehmer, a legatee, receives only a personal claim against the heirs for the specific item or sum named in the will. They never become an owner of the estate itself and are not liable for the estate's debts in that capacity.

Someone reading a translated German will who sees a relative given the savings account, das Sparbuch, as a Vermächtnis should not assume that person is a co-owner of the house or the car as well. They have a claim to the savings account and nothing more, unless the will separately names them an heir too.

Naming an executor: Testamentsvollstreckung

§ 2197 BGB lets a testator name one or more Testamentsvollstrecker, executors, and a substitute in case the first appointment fails to take effect. An executor administers the estate according to the will's instructions rather than leaving that job to the heirs directly, which is a common choice where heirs are minor children, where the heirs do not get along, where a business needs continuity, or where a Berliner Testament's binding provisions need someone independent to enforce them against a survivor who might otherwise be tempted to work around them.

Revoking a will

A testator can revoke a will, or a single provision inside it, at any time under § 2253 BGB, using any of several routes. Making a new will that conflicts with the old one revokes the old one to the extent of the conflict under § 2258 Abs. 1 BGB. Where the new will is itself later revoked, the earlier one generally revives under § 2258 Abs. 2 BGB. A will can also be revoked physically: § 2255 BGB provides that destroying the document, or altering it, with the intention of cancelling it counts as revocation, and the law presumes that intention where the document has in fact been destroyed or altered in that way.

A joint Berliner Testament is the exception to straightforward revocation once one spouse has died, for the Bindungswirkung reasons described above.

Making sure the will is actually found

A handwritten will kept at home can be lost, overlooked, or simply never mentioned to anyone. § 2248 BGB lets a testator ask for their handwritten will to be placed in besondere amtliche Verwahrung, special official safekeeping, at the local Amtsgericht acting as Nachlassgericht, for a modest one-time fee. A notarial will is automatically placed into official safekeeping as part of making it.

Whichever form is used, the will should also be registered with the Zentrales Testamentsregister, the central electronic register run by the Bundesnotarkammer under § 78c BNotO. The register does not hold the will's text, only the fact that a will exists and where it is deposited, so that the correct Nachlassgericht is notified automatically once a death is reported to a German registry office. A will that sits in a drawer with no registration anywhere depends entirely on someone finding it and recognising what it is.

What a will cannot do: the Pflichtteil

A will can disinherit a child, a spouse, or a parent outright. What it cannot do is remove that person's Pflichtteil, the compulsory share set out in § 2303 BGB. Disinheriting a descendant, spouse, or parent does not extinguish their claim. It converts what would have been a share of the estate itself into a money claim against the heirs, worth half the value of what that person would have inherited under the statutory rules had there been no will at all.

That claim, what triggers it, how gifts made before death can enlarge it, and how a Berliner Testament in particular tends to create a Pflichtteil problem on the first death, are covered in full on the compulsory share page. Anyone drafting a will that disinherits a child or spouse should read that page before assuming the will alone settles the matter. Where there is no will at all, the rules on intestate succession determine who inherits and how much, which is also the reference point for how much a written will actually changes for a given family.

German law explained covers the wider set of topics relevant to living, working, or holding assets in Germany as a foreign national.

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